Revision of the Accountants Rules: New Opportunities for Accounting Corporations, Accounting Firms and Accounting LLPs

revision-the-accountants-rules The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) has made alterations to the fee-related guidelines under the Accountants (Public Accountants) Rules (“PA Rules”) and the Accountants (Accounting Corporations, Accounting Firms and Accounting LLPs) Rules (“AE Rules”) to foster clarity and productivity.

The PA Rules and the AE Rules have been amended with effect from December 15, 2022, to:

(a) Specify the revised fees for the Practice Monitoring Programme (PMP) outcomes;

(b) Apply current PMP fee caps to public accountants who work in accounting entities that do not audit any entities whose shares or stock are quoted or listed on a Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) stock exchange;

(d) Give the Registrar of Public Accountants the authority to waive, refund, or remit any fee imposed by the Accountants Act (AA); and

(e) Remove the manual certification fee for prescribed documents.

See the Annex for more details of the amendments.

The changes are set out in the following:

Accountants (Public Accountants) (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2022 (33KB, PDF); and
Accountants (Accounting Corporations, Accounting Firms and Accounting LLPs) (Amendment) Rules 2022 (28KB,PDF)

Annex

Details of the Amendments

S/N	Amendment(s)	Previous Requirement	Reason(s) for the Amendment
a	The First Schedule of the PA Rules has been revised to incorporate a fee structure of $200 per hour, with a maximum of $2,000, for reconsiderations. The amended provision is outlined in Practice Direction No. 2 of 2022 (132KB, PDF), which supersedes Practice Direction 4 of 2014.	Reconsideration of PMP outcomes is subject to a fee of $100 per hour, with a maximum charge of $1,000 as outlined in Practice Direction No. 4 of 2014.	To comply with the current rate of $200 per hour for the performance of PMP inspections, which was updated in 2017, and to reflect the time taken by PMP reviewers to assess public accounts, the hourly rate must be adjusted accordingly.
b	The PA Rules have been revised in Paragraph 4(2) to make it explicit that the PMP fee caps apply to public accountants who work in accounting entities that do not audit any entities with publicly traded securities on the Singapore Exchange.	The fees imposed by ACRA’s PMP apply to public accountants who do not audit any listed entity.	Assist small- and medium-sized practitioners in controlling regulatory expenses and delineate the definition of a listed entity.
c	The Sixth Item of the First Schedule of the PA Rules has been modified to expressly indicate that any costs reasonably incurred by the PMP examiner to the PMP review shall comprise a component of the fees payable.	None	It is hereby agreed that any costs associated with a PMP inspection (e.g. printing, stationery, and transportation expenses) shall be included in the public accountant’s fees.
d	The Registrar of Public Accountants has been granted the authority to exempt, refund, or reduce any fee that is legally owed by the PA Rules and AE Rules.	The ACRA Board, with the approval of the Minister, is authorized by the AA to make regulations that waive, reimburse or remit any fee payable under the AA.	To promote more effective regulations and bring ACRA’s regulations in line with other similar regulatory bodies.
e	The previously established fee outlined in Item 8 of the First Schedule of the AE Rules about the manual authentication of a copy or extract of a prescribed document filed with the Registrar has been removed.	By the AE Rules, a fee of $2 per page is required for the manual authentication of a copy of, or excerpt from, any documents filed with the Registrar.	Manual certification is no longer available from ACRA.

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